Did you catch on that the pronunciation of יה could very well have been “Ya-ho”, already a way of avoiding the pronunciation of the name יהוה and transliterated at ιαω? In other words, that the evidence that you presented already shows an avoidance to pronouncing the Tetragrammaton? The lack of the “h” and “w” sounds in Greek muddies the waters.

The form yah only occurs 49 times in the Tanakh, mostly in poetic texts. it also occurs together with yhwh (Isaiah 26:4) and therefore cannot be a substitute.

I agree with you that יה cannot be taken as a substitute for יהוה, however most of the uses of יה is in the phrase הללו יה where the common practice is to take יה as a substitute for יהוה. I disagree with that common practice, but it is a common practice nonetheless.

You are speculating absent of evidence that in post-Biblical DSS Hebrew that readers didn’t substitute יה or even אדני for when they read יהוה orally in a text.

R.J. Furuli wrote:

Are there any extant Greek mms of the New Testament that has the Hebrew characters in quotations of Tanakh passages that contain the Tetragrammaton? Or have the transliteration of יה as ιαω? The Greek New Testament was written for a mixed audience that contained both Jews, mainly diaspora Jews many of whom knew not Hebrew, and non-Jews who never learned Hebrew, why would the writers of the New Testament not follow a practice that may have been already widespread in the vocalization of Greek?

The oldest manuscript with kurios is from the fourth century CE. The oldest NT and LXX manuscripts are dated in the last part of the second century CE. They have the nomina sacra ks and ths in quotations from the Tanakh.

Both LXX and NT, or LXX alone?

R.J. Furuli wrote: These arepresent emendations of the original texts. We know that the original LXX had tetragrams or iao. But we cannot know which words in the original NT manuscripts tht were emended.

You know from actual manuscripts, or speculation? And where manuscripts had the tetragrammaton, how were they pronounced?

R.J. Furuli wrote:I would like to stress that there is no manuscipt evidence that the original NT manuscripts contained kurios. And there is no manuscript evidence that they contained yhwh or iao. But the pattern of the LXX emendations make the last alternative more likely.

Sorry, but I need actual texts, extent manuscripts, Absent actual manuscripts, this appears to be speculation.

R.J. Furuli wrote:My basic point from the beginning, was that there is no evidence that 'adonai we used as a substitute until the second part of the first century CE. So, the "widespread practice" that you mention is nonexistent.

But you don’t have evidence that it wasn’t an oral widespread practice before then. Further, ιαω is evidence that יה was being substituted for יהוה when the Hebrew text was read aloud.

R.J. Furuli wrote:Best regards,

Rolf J. FuruliStavernNorway

We have from later sources that אדני was being said when readers encountered the name יהוה, but how soon did that practice arise? Any answer by necessity will be speculation because we’re dealing with something that was oral and not written down.

Because we’re dealing with something where we don’t have proof either way, what use is there to argue?

We have from later sources that אדני was being said when readers encountered the name יהוה, but how soon did that practice arise? Any answer by necessity will be speculation because we’re dealing with something that was oral and not written down.

Because we’re dealing with something where we don’t have proof either way, what use is there to argue?

I am very surprised as to your view of the value of evidence. The basic principle in historical and archaeological research is the question: What do the data we have show? At some later time, new data may be found, and because of these data we may change our earlier viewpoints. We will never have all data—that is the problem of induction—so we must build on the data that we have. So "what is there to argue"? The answer is that we possess about 530 extrabiblical DSS manuscripts, and these are the only original manuscripts from the second and first centuries BCE and from the first century CE. We should study these data and ask what they show. We cannot reject these data, because we do not possess all the manuscripts that were written in these centuries.

I have carefully studied all these manuscripts, and they definitely contradict the almost universal view among scholars that the divine name was not used and pronounced in the three mentioned centuries, but the substitute 'adonai was used instead. There is absolutely no evidence for this view, but because famous scholars have supported this view, it is believed by many.

The positive evidence is as follows: I have a list of 66 clauses in Hebrew documents and six clauses in Aramaic doments, showing that the divine name was used and pronounced. These clauses are take from 57 different documents that are dated between 150 BCE and 50 CE. For example, The Temple Scroll (11Q19a) 60:11, dated between 125 and 100 BCE, says that the priests shall "pronounce blessings in my name." and Sefera-Milhama f"ii:2 (11Q14), dated between 30 and 50 CE, says, "And he shall bless them in the name (of God)." These blessings could not be given if the divine name was not pronounced.

In addition to the list containing these 57 documents dated between 150 BCE and 50 CE, I have a list of 321 occurrences of yhwh from 80 Hebrew manuscripts, and one from an Aramaic manuscript. And these manuscripts are dated between 150 BCE and 70 CE.

I also have a list of 646 occurrences of 'el, and Some of the documents written by scribes from the Qumran community used 'el, but not 'adonai as a substitute for yhwh. It is not easy to identify manuscripts that were written by the Qumran community and manuscripts that were written by gropus elswhere in the country, and that were imported to Qumran. But I have a list of 14 manuscrips that have the hallmarks of the scribes of the Qumran community, with clauses showing that the divine name was used and pronounced; two of these manuscripts also have occurrences of yhwh.

Regarding the NT autographs, and whether they used yhwh or kurios in quotations from the Hebrew scriptures, we do not have manuscript evidence. But the evidence from the DSS is very clear and goes only one way.

We have from later sources that אדני was being said when readers encountered the name יהוה, but how soon did that practice arise? Any answer by necessity will be speculation because we’re dealing with something that was oral and not written down.

Because we’re dealing with something where we don’t have proof either way, what use is there to argue?

.

I am very surprised as to your view of the value of evidence.

Let’s look at the evidence you have presented so far:

• Some of the earliest copies of the LXX have יהוה where the tetragrammaton is found. Whereas all other names have been transliterated from the Egyptian dialect of Hebrew, what does it mean that this name has not been transliterated? How is this not evidence that this is a name not to be pronounced?

• The transliteration of ιαω is evidence that when reading Tanakh in Hebrew, that the oral pronunciation was that of יה when the reader encountered יהוה as a way to avoid pronouncing God’s name.

• In early copies of the LXX ΚΣ and ΘΣ are found where יהוה is found in Hebrew. Those are indications that the pronunciations should be κυριος and θεος when reading in Greek Later copies spelled out κυριος and θεος.

• Whereas the Masoretes tried to avoid changing a single consonant of Tanakh when they made copies, when they read the text out loud, they substituted אדני for when they came across יהוה. Because this was a strictly oral activity, we have no evidence for when it began.

R.J. Furuli wrote:The basic principle in historical and archaeological research is the question: What do the data we have show?

The corollary to that is, what things that the data we have cannot show?

For example, we don’t know how Hebrew was pronounced before the Babylonian Exile. We have frustratingly few transliterations from that period. What those very few transliterations show is that:

• the pronunciation was very different from modern pronunciation

• they provide support for my theory that Biblical Hebrew was originally a syllabary, that each consonant was followed by a vowel.

• We don’t have enough evidence to show what were the original vowels.

R.J. Furuli wrote:We cannot reject these data,

What data am I rejecting when I say we don’t have sufficient data?

R.J. Furuli wrote:I have carefully studied all these manuscripts, and they definitely contradict the almost universal view among scholars that the divine name was not used and pronounced in the three mentioned centuries,

This is your interpretation of the data, However, as I show above, your interpretation is open to challenge.

R.J. Furuli wrote:…but the substitute 'adonai was used instead.

I don’t go that far, because the evidence isn’t there that אדני was used instead of יהוה, but even the data that you provide this discussion indicate that steps were being taken to avoid saying the name יהוה when reading Tanakh aloud and when speaking.

R.J. Furuli wrote:The positive evidence is as follows: I have a list of 66 clauses in Hebrew documents and six clauses in Aramaic doments, showing that the divine name was used and pronounced.

How regularly, or only on special occasions?

R.J. Furuli wrote:The Temple Scroll (11Q19a) 60:11, dated between 125 and 100 BCE, says that the priests shall "pronounce blessings in my name." and Sefera-Milhama f"ii:2 (11Q14), dated between 30 and 50 CE, says, "And he shall bless them in the name (of God)." These blessings could not be given if the divine name was not pronounced.

This sounds like on special occasions, but not on a daily basis in normal conversation or even in reading Tanakh in a synagog. Further, that they say “in my name” and “in the name” are indications that people avoided saying God’s name in normal conversations, and most likely when reading Tanakh.

R.J. Furuli wrote:I have a list of 321 occurrences of yhwh from 80 Hebrew manuscripts, and one from an Aramaic manuscript.

The problem with these is that that don’t tell how people actually pronounced the name. Further, how many of these occurrences are quotes or citations of individual verses from Tanakh?

R.J. Furuli wrote:Regarding the NT autographs, and whether they used yhwh or kurios in quotations from the Hebrew scriptures, we do not have manuscript evidence.

We have more manuscript evidence concerning the New Testament than any other ancient book, by far. Therefore this lack of evidence is evidence of lack, that such a practice was not done.

R.J. Furuli wrote:But the evidence from the DSS is very clear and goes only one way.

The DSS evidence is for a community within a Jewish milieu, the New Testament was written for the diaspora and non-Jewish audience. Why should we expect that they would follow exactly the same practices?

R.J. Furuli wrote:Best regards,

Rolf J. FuruliStavernNorway

Years ago I heard claims that Hebrew continued being natively spoken into the Mishnaic period. I greeted that news with joy, because I really wanted that to be true. But then, when I looked for data to back up that claim, I found none. Instead the data I found indicate that the Jews who returned from the Babylonian Exile were for the most part native Aramaic speakers, and by the time of Nehemiah and Ezra there were probably no native Hebrew speakers. Hebrew continued to be spoken, but in the same way that Latin was spoken in the medieval period to today—the language of government, law, religion, high literature, but nobody spoke it natively.

The same way with pronouncing the tetragrammaton—my personal preference is that the name would have continued to be used as in Biblical days. Instead, the data I have seen, indicate that there were active measures during the DSS period to avoid saying יהוה out loud. Some of that data is what you provided during this discussion. My conclusion is that יהוה continued to be spoken throughout the DSS period, but mostly restricted to ceremonial occasions connected with the temple. After the temple was destroyed, even that use was mostly stopped. What replaced it? That was an oral practice that left no written evidence, though you provided evidence that יה and אל were used in Hebrew, while spoken κυριος and θεος were used in Greek

Consider also the theophoric name יהוא of 2Kings 19:16 vocalized as יֵהוּא YEHU.

This is not a theophoric name. The name has two syllables, and the sere in the first open syllable represents a pretonic lengthening. The second syllable has the stress, and the vowel is long. I cannot see how this name throws any light on the nature of the letters in the tetragram.

Could the evidence indicate that the LXX was changed to use kurios in place of yhwh after the NT was written, to align with the NT?

You mentioned that the earliest NT manuscripts that quote the OT, which are at the end of the 2nd century, used abbreviations for Theos and Kurios in place of YHWH. How many NT manuscripts and verses is this?

SteveMiller wrote:You mentioned that the earliest NT manuscripts that quote the OT, which are at the end of the 2nd century, used abbreviations for Theos and Kurios in place of YHWH. How many NT manuscripts and verses is this?

Rolf is talking of the Nomina Sacra, which are evident in practically every single Greek mss from the 2nd-9th Centuries CE, mostly for the names/titles Kyrios (Yahweh/Lord), Iesous (Jesus/Joshua), Theos (God), and Christos (Christ/Messiah), although with several more added in.

Safe to say, most Greek MS quoting from the Tanakh where YHWH would be in the Hebrew, you will find it as a nomen sacrum.

Romans 10:13 for example, which quotes Joel 2:32, is seen in Papyrus 46 (dated 150-250 CE) as such:

πας γαρ ος εαν επικαλεσηται το ονομα κ̅υ̅ σωθησεται

Hopefully it shows up alright, but you should see the nomen sacrum κ̅υ̅ above, which when written out would be the genitive form κυρίου, translated usually as 'of the Lord', but 'of Yahweh' would work fine as well.

I would argue however that the use of κύριος for YHWH either predates or at least coincides with the NT era, for the very fact that in Romans 10:13, Paul is using the quote from Joel 2:32 as a reference to Jesus, and not Yahweh (though both not mutually exclusive, IMO, for the NT writers). From them to make this 'conflation' so to speak for κύριος referring to both Yahweh and Jesus, κύριος being used for YHWH either must predate the understanding, or at least coincide with it for them to come to this conclusion.

Notwithstanding, whether it is a Jewish practice that influenced the NT writers, and then subsequently the scribes that copied later LXX manuscripts, is not able to be determined. It might be that all LXX manuscripts after the 2nd Century CE that use the nomina sacra are from the pen of Christian scribes, or from the pen of Jewish ones. Unfortunately the data for what precisely happened between 1st century BCE and 2nd century CE is lost, or yet to be discovered.